European Selling Partner Report 2020
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European Selling Partner Report 2020 Published July 2021
Table of Contents
Introduction 3
Investment and Growth in Europe 4
Empowering Small Businesses 6
Selling on Amazon 8
EUROPEAN SELLING PARTNER REPORT 2020
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Introduction
We’re proud to help our European selling partners thrive, making it easy for them to sell online and expand
their businesses from their home town to around the globe.
Our success depends on our selling partners’ success; more than half of everything purchased on Amazon
is sold by third-party sellers, many of whom are small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
In 2020, 185,000 European SMBs sold more than 1.8 billion products in our stores (up from 1.3 billion in
2019), and with access to millions of Amazon customers around the globe, European SMBs recorded over
€12.5 billion in export sales, selling on average more than 3,400 products every minute. To date, European
SMBs have created more than half a million jobs in their local communities.
This report offers insights into our relationship with European selling partners: how we’ve invested in their
growth, and how we support them in selling on Amazon.
At Amazon, our customer-centric culture extends to our selling partners. We regularly seek feedback on
our policies, procedures, and tools to ensure that Amazon is a place where selling partners succeed, and
where customers can enjoy a broad selection of products.
In 2020, we invested approximately €2.8 billion on logistics, tools, services, programmes, and training to
help European selling partners, and we have a dedicated worldwide team of more than 10,000 people
focused on assisting selling partners in conducting their daily business.
We are constantly working to improve, and we want to ensure that our selling partners can use our services
seamlessly. Our goal is to make the experience of selling on Amazon as delightful and friction-free as
possible so that our selling partners can continue to grow with Amazon in Europe and around the world.
Thank you,
Xavier Flamand
Director, EU Seller Services, Amazon
EUROPEAN SELLING PARTNER REPORT 2020
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Section 1:
Investment and Growth in Europe
EUROPEAN SELLING PARTNER REPORT 2020
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Investment and growth in Europe
We’ve worked with European selling partners for almost 20 years, and supporting their success is
fundamental to our business. In 2020, we continued to provide innovative new tools and features, invest in
local logistics, and expand our stores in Europe.
We have more than 60 logistics sites in Europe, including fulfilment centres, sortation centres, and delivery
stations. We increased the square footage of our fulfilment and logistics network by 50% in 2020, and we
continue to open new fulfilment centres across Europe.
In 2020, more than 80,000 European SMBs chose to take advantage of Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA). With
FBA, selling partners can store products in our fulfilment centres, and we’ll pick, pack, ship, and provide
customer service for them.
We also launched Amazon.nl and Amazon.se, making it easier for Dutch and Swedish customers to shop from
millions of products, and allowing European selling partners to reach new customers in these countries.
Expert insights
Here’s what leading small business experts have to say about the success of European SMBs selling online:
"Digital can be a real asset for local businesses. The lockdown experience
accelerated the transformation of uses and proved the economic and social
usefulness of digital technology. Our studies show that physical stores that have
developed an online sales service are seeing a positive impact on their activity.”
- Marc Lolivier, General Delegate of the Federation of e-commerce and online sales (France)
“The COVID-19 pandemic has made clear that there is an urgency for the
digitization of sale channels of SMBs to keep being competitive. Therefore, the
boost of international sales through the digital channels is the “engine” for
economic recovery.”
- Joan Romero, CEO of ACCIÓ - Agència per la Competitivitat de l'Empresa (Spain)
“As we look toward the future, equipping small businesses with the skills and
resources they need to take advantage of digital trade will be a vital component of
our successful economic recovery.”
- Tej Parikh, Chief Economist, Institute of Directors (UK)
EUROPEAN SELLING PARTNER REPORT 2020
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Section 2:
Empowering Small Businesses
EUROPEAN SELLING PARTNER REPORT 2020
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Empowering small businesses
Many selling partners are entrepreneurs who are experimenting and building their business with Amazon.
Keeping up with ecommerce trends, regulatory changes and new Amazon features can be challenging, so we
offer a wide range of resources to guide them towards success.
Business tools
In 2020, we delivered more than 250 new tools and services to help selling partners launch new products,
optimise their listings, and expand in Europe and globally. These innovations included improvements to
Amazon's VAT calculation and invoicing tools that enabled European selling partners to automate the
creation of more than 1.4 billion invoicing documents; as well as Personalized FBA recommendations, which
use machine learning to give sellers customized recommendations on which products to enroll in FBA to
accelerate their growth on Amazon.
Also launched in 2020, Amazon Brand Analytics helps brand owners make strategic decisions about their
product portfolio and marketing activities through five key reports including search terms, item comparison,
and repeat purchase behaviour. And our new advertising and analytics measurement solution Amazon
Attribution gives selling partners insight into how their marketing campaigns outside Amazon across search,
social, display, video and email impact shopping activity and sales performance on Amazon.
Educational tools
In 2020, we kept selling partners informed with tips on how to optimise their Amazon selling experience, as
well as updates on new regulatory requirements and policies (including Brexit and VAT changes), in regular
news announcements via Seller Central, seller forums, newsletters and our seller app.
Our Seller University helped European selling partners master Amazon’s tools and grow their businesses by
offering courses on more than 1,800 topics, including how to start selling on Amazon, how FBA works, and
advertising tips for brand owners. Selling partners viewed this content more than 800,000 times in 2020.
Supporting small and medium businesses
We’re grateful that Amazon could continue to serve our selling partners and customers in the face of COVID-
19. Customers were able to order and receive what they needed during the crisis and our selling partners, in
many cases, grew their businesses online. To support European SMBs during the pandemic, we funded a
“Spend €10, Get €10” customer promotion for Prime Day 2020 that helped SMBs drive over €750 million in
sales in the two weeks leading up to the event. We also supported thousands of businesses across the EU
with storage and removal fee waivers on FBA, while Amazon Launchpad, a programme that showcases
cutting-edge products from the latest startups, offered ongoing fee relief and online training on funding,
marketing, and other topics.
Launched in October 2020, our Climate Pledge Friendly programme makes it easy for customers to discover
and shop for products with sustainability certifications. Selling partners can demonstrate their commitment
to preserving the natural world by identifying products with eligible sustainability certifications – such as
Fairtrade International or Carbon Neutral by Carbon Trust – to earn our Climate Pledge Friendly badge.
And we invested more than €600 million worldwide to protect our stores from fraud and abuse. As a result,
we were able to protect selling partners’ brands and help ensure customers only find authentic products in
our store. We also launched our Intellectual Property Accelerator (IP Accelerator) in France, Germany, Italy,
Spain, Netherlands and the UK, to make it easier for European selling partners to obtain trademarks, protect
their brands, and innovate as they grow their business.
EUROPEAN SELLING PARTNER REPORT 2020
7Section 3:
Selling on Amazon
EUROPEAN SELLING PARTNER REPORT 2020
8Selling on Amazon
By selling on Amazon, selling partners can tap into enormous volumes of customer traffic, leverage Amazon’s
scale and cost efficiencies, and access a wealth of data and analytics. We have a dedicated worldwide team
of more than 10,000 people focused on improving the experience of selling partners on Amazon, and
assisting them in conducting their daily business.
When we innovate to improve the experience of selling on Amazon, we start by listening to our selling
partners. Our selling partner insights programmes seek feedback on our features and processes by polling
selling partners when they log in to their selling account, sharing ad-hoc surveys, and hosting interactive
workshops with our teams. We also analyse selling partner contacts to detect and fix bugs and improve our
help content and processes.
We created new tools in response to selling partner needs, such as the Account Health Rating, which helps
selling partners proactively address policy violations to avoid business disruption. Also launched in 2020, the
Listing Quality Dashboard gives sellers access to guided troubleshooting workflows that help them to
improve their product listings and optimise product discoverability.
Selling Partner Support and Contacts
When European selling partners need help or more information on our tools and services, they have access to
support and account management in 10 different languages. We’ve created numerous self-service help tools
to make our services as easy to use as possible, and to empower selling partners to resolve issues quickly and
efficiently.
Our team is available to support selling partners in running their business day-to-day, including helping to
navigate changes such as COVID-19, Brexit, the Goods Package legislation and the UK Digital Services Tax.
Selling partners can contact us in a variety of ways including by email, phone, and chat, and in 2020 we had
more than seven million engagements and contacts with our European selling partners. Many contacts
regarded advice, education and support on our tools, processes and programmes. These included questions
about creating product listings, enrolment into
programmes such as Brand Registry, and weight and
dimensions requirements for FBA.
Selling partners also contact us when they are dissatisfied
with our services or disagree with our policies or decisions.
In 2020, this accounted for less than 4% of all European
selling partner engagements (284,577 contacts).
EUROPEAN SELLING PARTNER REPORT 2020
9The five main topics that drove these selling partner
complaints were: Product display and listings (65%);
FBA, orders and refunds (23%); Registration, account
access and settings (6%); and Advertising and add-
on services (5%).
In 2020, we reviewed and made a final decision on
68% of those complaints in less than 24 hours. Our
average processing time was 3.7 days. In 90% of
cases, we resolved the complaint to the selling
partner’s satisfaction.
If selling partners remain dissatisfied with an
Amazon decision after reaching out to our support
teams, they can seek resolution for most disputes
through an independent mediation process,
facilitated by the Centre for Effective Dispute
Resolution (further information here). Amazon
reviews all mediation cases and attempts to resolve
them before the formal mediation process begins,
saving selling partners time and money.
In 2020, European selling partners submitted 74 mediation requests. Amazon resolved 58 to the selling
partner’s satisfaction before mediation went ahead, and in 13 cases, selling partners received information on
how to start mediation but chose not to go ahead. In two out of three cases that proceeded to mediation, the
mediator agreed with Amazon’s decision. Finally, of the 74 mediation requests, only one case proceeded to
mediation where the mediator recommended that we change our decision, which we did.
Further reading
In 2021 and beyond, we’ll continue to assist and invest in our European selling partners, providing them with
the tools they need to build successful businesses selling across Europe and the globe.
For more information on how we support small and medium businesses and protect brands, read our 2021
European SMB Impact Report, and our 2020 Brand Protection Report.
EUROPEAN SELLING PARTNER REPORT 2020
10EUROPEAN SELLING PARTNER REPORT 2020
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